When a new virus breaks

摘要

On December 31, Chinese authorities alerted the World Health Organization to a mysterious respiratory illness afflicting people in Wuhan, China. On January 7, the authorities said they had identified a new virus, a coronavirus in the same family as the common cold, SARS and MERS. Journalists like me who cover infectious disease sit up and take notice when "new coronavirus," "SARS" and "MERS" show up in the same sentence. Add "in China," the starting point for the SARS outbreak, and we start calling sources.